Pep Guardiola clarifies comments on not caring about Premier League after derby defeat

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has insisted he does care about the Premier League, offering more clarification to his unusual comments made after the derby defeat to Manchester United.

With Arsenal now five points ahead with a game in hand, Guardiola said he no longer cared about either the Premier League or Carabao Cup, having been eliminated from the latter with a shock defeat to Southampton last week.

Asked about his comments after the match, Guardiola attempted to add some clarity.

“Come on, of course I care who wins the Premier League,” he replied. “But right now, after Southampton, if we don’t win, we don’t win.

“We’re not going to win the next 25 years everything. We fight, because we saw [against United] we’re going to fight and play to win, but sometimes football is like that. You don’t win.

“The manager, Erik [ten Hag], or the people say how good [United] are, and they deserve it, of course. Everyone has his point of view.

“We want to try, but number one is behaving in this way. Afterwards, sometimes it happens, sometimes not. What I know is all the time what we have to do is be better and better and better to win in this league.

“We lost the Carabao Cup three days ago; we lost it. But it’s not about losing the Carabao Cup, it’s the way we lose the game. This is why I was sad, really, really sad.”